Wireless Data Access in Mobile Hotspots: A Simulation Study

Mobile hotspots enable ubiquitous Internet access while users are on-board a vehicle. In this paper, we investigate wireless data access applications with strong consistency in mobile hotspots. Through extensive simulations, we quantify the performances of two well-known strongly consistent data access algorithms: poll-each-read (PER) and callback (CB). We develop a comprehensive simulation model that considers wireless link characteristics in mobile hotspots. Simulation results demonstrate the access-to-update ratio is an important factor to determine the performances of PER and CB. In addition, the effects of cache size, data access pattern, and wireless link bandwidth on the wireless data access algorithms are analyzed. Finally, valuable observations for performance optimizations are given.